Reader/movie watcher beware--slightly spoilerific.
Reading comments and thinking about many of the crap movies that come out these days has led me to the conclusion I wasn’t quite able to come to right after I saw the movie: I adored the movie version of the Hunger Games. Specifically, I adore the filmmakers and writers who made the film what it was supposed to be.
For making the violence exactly what it was. No spectacle, no violence for violence’s sake. It feels like a lone example of a movie that doesn’t glorify violence, in a story that would have been all too easy to do just that.
Not that I’m saying I’m against that kind of violence in movies. It serves its own purpose, and it can be entertaining in its own right. It just didn’t belong anywhere in the Hunger Games, and I’m so happy that the right people recognized that.
What I don’t adore, so much, is that some of the audience seemed to not quite understand what the movie--the story--was supposed to be. Which is the main reason why I couldn’t quite say I loved the movie right after I got out of it. I enjoyed it a lot, but there were many parts that couldn’t resonate with me because of the audience (I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to movie theaters, so don’t take my complaints too personally).
Movies are about enjoyment. I’m all for showing your excitement and getting hyped up for a great movie. Some of the most fun I’ve had is at midnight showings with friends, hearing the crowd cheer as the opening credits roll. But some reactions during the Hunger Games make me wonder if these people (mostly girls, in this high pitched squeal example) are paying attention at all, or if they’ve been programmed to not take movies seriously. If they even understand the gravity of a situation played out in front of them.
Again, I’m not advocating against violence in movies. But when so much of what we see is surrounded in violence, and we grow up seeing it portrayed in ever more grotesque and near-fetish ways, often for comedic effect, when this is the majority of what we encounter, it affects how we view the movies that aren’t meant to be a spectacle. The movies that meant to make us feel for the people, to realize the terror of a hopeless situation. To make us feel for every character that has to step into that arena, and in the end, to show that there is no real winner in the Hunger Games. You can cheer for Katniss or Peeta all you want, but if you can’t recognize that they’re killing real people forced into this situation (or coerced), people that are not inherently evil and at one time may not have been such bad people, then you’ve missed the whole point of this movie--or at least part.
I thought the movies did that well, at least. I didn’t even find myself hating the careers that much. I didn’t particularly like them, but once their arrogance and easy dismissal of killing defense-less children--nothing that we should dismiss, mind you--is gone, they’re just people, who, instead of being picked for the games, were perhaps raised in a way that made them believe that there was actual honor in the games, who basically had their childhoods stolen from them. Kato barely realized that his volunteering was a death sentence, until Katniss’s arrow was pointed at his face. I’m not sure how to react to someone who cheers for his death.
Aside from the violence, there’s an extreme separation between the content of the books, and the marketing surrounding them. The marketing wants to follow in the suit of Twilight, giving you “teams” to root for, for which guy you want Katniss to choose, as if it even matters that much to the story, like it does in Twilight. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with rooting for one of the guys. If you’re at all romantically inclined, like me, despite how cynical I might sound, you’re going to end up siding with one of them and wishing that Katniss would pick him. At the same time, by the end of the series, I no longer cared about who I had been rooting for, because far more had happened by then, overshadowing that little bit of love story. Collins has given us so much in exchange for that. And marketing that reduces the movie to “Team Peeta” or “Team Gale” does exactly that. It reduces the movie. Luckily, the filmmakers did no such thing.
I’m very happy with this movie. I’m glad the books were teen books to begin with, to force the studio to stick to the PG13 rating. Without that, who knows what the movie might have looked like. I’m looking forward to a second viewing where I can let the movie affect me as it should, without the audience around me letting me know how they’re taking it. Because, once you’ve viewed it with all your friends, maybe this movie is one where we should all take a quiet viewing and really think about what it’s telling us. There is much to be learned from it and the entire series, as with any good dystopian fiction, and it’s ever more important that we pay attention.
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